Technical Page

The first step when your film arrives is a visual check of your materials. Next your films are sorted in to any specified running order and one of our technicians will begin the process of inspecting the films and if you have supplied a number of small spools, splicing them in to larger reels on which we will return your films.

Your film is then ready for transfer.

We are proud to be using the FlashScan HD, designed and built in Germany my MWA Nova. The FlashScan takes transfers to a totally new level and moves away from using modified and so called updated projector technology.

The basis of a stable and precise transfer is a stable and precise movement of the film through the film deck or gate. In the days when cine film was projected the movement of the film was controlled by a toothed wheel/sprockets and a claw that pulled the film through the gate frame by frame. The vast majority of machines built for transferring cine to video and DVD, over the years, have still replied on this technology. Indeed for many years we used such equipment produced by ELMO of Japan and more recently Tobin Cinema systems in the US. It has always been apparent to us that whilst camera, video and now digital technology was moving at a pace film transport was not.

The FlashScan HD, after years of development and experience in the transfer of larger formats enables a radically new approach.

Your film is transported by a rubber coated capstan wheel driven by an extremely precise stepper motor that is in turn controlled by a laser which detects the sprocket holes in your film. As the film passes through the gate a flashing light source exposes each frame to a rapid burst of red light, then green and finally blue. All at a speed invisible to the human eye. By using individual bursts of each colour we can achieve superior colour from the dye layers with in your film. The light source is also scatter diffused which helps disguise any minor scratches on the film. Finally the images produced are captured by a camera which has a true native resolution of 1280x720(720p50) The output is then digitized and recorded on to our computer hard drives as large high quality AVi files ready for compression to DVD or BluRay. Should you wish we can also supply you with these files.